JVC 2012 Annual Report Download - page 7

Nearly five years have passed since July 2007, when the
former Victor Company of Japan, Limited and the former
Kenwood Corporation formed a capital and business alliance
with a view to management integration and becoming a
specialized manufacturer that leads the world.
When we formed that alliance, we also launched
efforts to create synergies. Such efforts have produced
significant results over the ensuing five-year period, and the
presence of the Car Electronics business has grown
substantially both in the after-market and OEM businesses.
Since management integration in October 2008, we have
been focusing our efforts on implementing drastic
restructuring, while concentrating management resources
on businesses where we can exert our strengths. As a result,
the JVCKENWOOD Groupʼs earnings structure has radically
changed and become leaner.
During the fiscal year ended March 2012, we shifted
focus to a growth strategy by using procured funds to
display our strengths to the maximum possible extent,
executing capital and fund policies to sustain growth. In
October 2011, we merged the holding company with three
operating companies. For the fiscal year ended March 2012,
net income was posted on a consolidated basis, and
operating income was recorded at each of the four main
business segments, marking the first occasion that either of
these key financial indicators had been recorded since the
Groupʼs establishment. This stable return to profit enabled us
to start paying dividends to shareholders.
Over the past five years, the Group has overcome
various difficulties and set the stage for profitable growth
thanks in no small part to your support. I would like to
express my heartfelt gratitude to you all.
With passion and swift action we will
resolutely take on challenges of
achieving profitable growth.
From now on, we will shift our focus significantly away from
achieving a turnaround to pursuing profitable growth. The
Japanese electronics industry has now entered its period of
greatest change since World War II, which no company can
cope with based purely on past successes. Such change can
be seen in the way that rapid growth in the volume zone of
emerging markets is engulfing that of industrialized country
markets, where Japan has been at its strongest. Another
change has been prompted by conventional
manufacturing—that based on the approach of
downgrading products from high-end to low-end models—
having reached its limit. We must now adopt a new
manufacturing approach from the viewpoint of emerging
countries, whereby competition with rivals is based on the
strength of material superiority while products are upgraded
from radically inexpensive, low-end models to high-end
models; in other words a different way of thinking , from the
bottom to the top.
To quickly ride the current in a period of change as it
bids to achieve profitable growth through passion and swift
action, the JVCKENWOOD Group will continuously introduce
products in keeping with its corporate vision of delivering
excitement and peace of mind to customers and in line with
the key policies described below.
1) Making inroads into growth markets
To win over the volume zone of burgeoning emerging
markets, we will achieve innovation in new manufacturing
from the viewpoint of emerging countries, to which we will
decisively shift management resources.
2) Shifting from manufacturer to value
creator
To shift away from pursuing functions alone to creating
user-led value, we will develop easy-to-use products and
services that feature breathtaking design, not only by using
cutting-edge technologies, but also by combining them with
optimum technologies. By doing so, we will exert a unique
presence in the global market.
We will constantly ride the current of the times and provide excitement
as well as peace of mind to customers by continuously introducing
products and services that are one step ahead of our competitors.
5
JVC KENWOOD Corporation
Management Message